Jane Austen famous quotes

I come here with no expectations, only to profess, now that I am at liberty to do so, that my heart is and always will be yours.
-- Jane Austen

#Heart #Expectations #Liberty

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.
-- Jane Austen

#Happiness #Wedding #Literature

There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Friendship #Cute Relationship

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
-- Jane Austen

#Inspirational #Funny #Stupid

I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.
-- Jane Austen

#Wish #Way #Wells

I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control.
-- Jane Austen

#Heart #Self #May

A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
-- Jane Austen

#Mind #Doe #Answers

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
-- Jane Austen

#Vanity #Weak #Produce

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like!
-- Jane Austen

#Math #Approval #Logic

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.
-- Jane Austen

#Pride #Thinking #Vanity

The enthusiasm of a woman's love is even beyond the biographer's.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Love Is #Enthusiasm

What are men to rocks and mountains?
-- Jane Austen

#Men #Rocks #Mountain

There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.
-- Jane Austen

#Moments #Form #Moments In Time

But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.
-- Jane Austen

#Pain #Names #Giving

To love is to burn, to be on fire.
-- Jane Austen

#Love Is #Fire

But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.
-- Jane Austen

#People #Something New

But to appear happy when I am so miserable — Oh! who can require it?
-- Jane Austen

#Miserable

We do not suffer by accident.
-- Jane Austen

#Suffering #Accidents

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Romantic #Funny Relationship

There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense.
-- Jane Austen

#Character #Thinking #People

I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.
-- Jane Austen

#Women #Hate #Independent

Sitting with her on Sunday evening — a wet Sunday evening — the very time of all others when if a friend is at hand the heart must be opened, and every thing told…
-- Jane Austen

#Heart #Sunday #Hands

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions. A large bulky figure has a good a right to be in deep affliction, as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair, there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will pa tronize in vain,--which taste cannot tolerate,--which ridicule will seize.
-- Jane Austen

#Grief #Sorrow #World

There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn thread-bare in all common hands; who can say any thing new or striking, any thing that rouses the attention, without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not (in his public capacity) honour enough.
-- Jane Austen

#Men #Hands #Offending

She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.
-- Jane Austen

#Mind #Tongue #Sometimes

To flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.
-- Jane Austen

#Half #Literature #States

Fine dancing, I believe like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different.
-- Jane Austen

#Dance #Believe #Thinking

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
-- Jane Austen

#Relationship #Honesty #Doe

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.
-- Jane Austen

#Dresses #Literature #Solicitude

But indeed I would rather have nothing but tea.
-- Jane Austen

#Tea

They are much to be pitied who have not been given a taste for nature early in life.
-- Jane Austen

#Nature #Taste #Given

You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
-- Jane Austen

#Philosophy #Past #Thinking

Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.
-- Jane Austen

#Inspirational #Stupid #Mary

Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.
-- Jane Austen

#Laughing #Nonsense #Whim

We are all fools in love
-- Jane Austen

#Love #History #Fool

I certainly must,' said she. 'This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything's being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.
-- Jane Austen

#House #Stupidity #Feelings

I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.
-- Jane Austen

#Eye #Pretty Woman #Faces

I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.
-- Jane Austen

#Happiness #People #Justice

Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.
-- Jane Austen

#Ironic #Suffering #Complaining

You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner." (Elizabeth Bennett)
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Pride #Way

Everybody likes to go their own way–to choose their own time and manner of devotion.
-- Jane Austen

#Religious #Past #Way

Now they were as strangers; nay worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted.
-- Jane Austen

#Stranger

Her eye fell everywhere on lawns and plantations of the freshest green; and the trees, though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when farther beauty is known to be at hand, and when, while much is actually given to the sight, more yet remains for the imagination.
-- Jane Austen

#Eye #Sight #Hands

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago. Dare not say that a man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.
-- Jane Austen

#Heart #Men #Agony

When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable If I have not an excellent library.
-- Jane Austen

#House #Library #Miserable

I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Sports #Men

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
-- Jane Austen

#Artist

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!
-- Jane Austen

#Reading #Enjoyment

She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.
-- Jane Austen

#Romance #Youth #Natural

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Romantic #Long

but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.
-- Jane Austen

#Inspirational #Book #Reading

And now I may dismiss my heroine to the sleepless couch, which is the true heroine's portion - to a pillow strewed with thorns and wet with tears. And lucky may she think herself, if she get another good night's rest in the course of the next three months.
-- Jane Austen

#Good Night #Thinking #Tears

I was quiet but I was not blind.
-- Jane Austen

#Quiet #Blind

Every moment has its pleasures and its hope.
-- Jane Austen

#Moments #Pleasure

Why not seize the pleasure at once? -- How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!
-- Jane Austen

#Inspirational #Happiness #Inspiring

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.
-- Jane Austen

#Beauty #Years #Twenties

Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
-- Jane Austen

#Time #Watches #Literature

An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged; no harm can be done.
-- Jane Austen

#Power #May #Safe

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.
-- Jane Austen

#Men #Literature #May

A person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.
-- Jane Austen

#Writing #Long #Ease

My good opinion once lost is lost forever.
-- Jane Austen

#Pride #Forever #Prejudice

Give a girl an education and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one but she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.
-- Jane Austen

#Inspirational #Girl #Education

A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.
-- Jane Austen

#Women #Knowledge #Knowing

Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.
-- Jane Austen

#Honesty #Heart #Female

Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.
-- Jane Austen

#Busy #Busy Life #Succession

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
-- Jane Austen

#Selfish #Practice #Selfishness

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
-- Jane Austen

#Happiness #Happy #Money

I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.
-- Jane Austen

#Men #Doubt #Emma

Those who do not complain are never pitied.
-- Jane Austen

#Complaining #Pity #Complaints

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Suffering #Doe

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.
-- Jane Austen

#Sadness #House #Guilt

Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
-- Jane Austen

#Funny #Men #Reality

They parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again.
-- Jane Austen

#Saying Goodbye #Desire #Lasts

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.
-- Jane Austen

#Women #Nine

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.
-- Jane Austen

#Girl #Likes #Next

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
-- Jane Austen

#Funny #Sports #Laughter

Good-humoured, unaffected girls, will not do for a man who has been used to sensible women. They are two distinct orders of being.
-- Jane Austen

#Girl #Men #Order

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.
-- Jane Austen

#Humility #Hype #Deceit

Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.
-- Jane Austen

#Reflection #Companion

Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
-- Jane Austen

#Hope #Selfish #Literature

The more I see of the world, the more am i dissatisfied with it; and everyday confirms my belief of the inconsistencies of all human.
-- Jane Austen

#Everyday #World #Belief

Look into your own heart because who looks outside, dreams, but who looks inside awakes.
-- Jane Austen

#Dream #Heart #Looks

No young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her.
-- Jane Austen

#Dream #Falling In Love #Love Is

I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.
-- Jane Austen

#Forgiveness #Pride #Forgiving

From politics it was an easy step to silence.
-- Jane Austen

#Silence #Steps #Easy

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.
-- Jane Austen

#Love #Romantic #Pregnancy

You must be the best judge of your own happiness.
-- Jane Austen

#Judging #Being The Best

I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding— certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of other so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.
-- Jane Austen

#Moving #Believe #Pride

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
-- Jane Austen

#Happiness #Deserve

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.
-- Jane Austen

#Dance #Falling In Love #Dancing

I can always live by my pen.
-- Jane Austen

#Live By #Pens

There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.
-- Jane Austen

#Courage #Women #Empowerment

And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.
-- Jane Austen

#Sick #Perfection #Wicked

I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.
-- Jane Austen

#Action #Wanted

The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.
-- Jane Austen

#Heart #I Love Him #Romantic Love

I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.
-- Jane Austen

#Strong #Healthy #May

Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
-- Jane Austen

#May #Individual #Difficulty

Without music, life would be a blank to me.
-- Jane Austen

#Music #Would Be #Blank

They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.
-- Jane Austen

#Knowing #Attention #Too Much

You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
-- Jane Austen

#Pride #Silence #Feelings